A Necessary Evil
by GrowlingPeanut
Summary: Kacia Roane is drafted into the Terran army at the age of nineteen and left in the hands of a squad that can barely function. As if that weren't bad enough, it seems that increasingly dark secrets being revealed about Auraxis could impact much more than the war alone.


**A/N:** Hey! So here it is! The official first chapter! Starring our overly-insecure rookie Roane and too-confident-for-his-own-good Sergeant Atkins. And, ya know, all the other loveable misfits that make up the squad.

Not too much to say here, other than this one will probably be updated pretty slowly, but will not be abandoned. It's dedicated to the real-life "Elliott Atkins," who was the one that got me to start playing PlanetSide in the first place. I'd also like to give a shoutout to **spark 'n Jetz**, who has been enthusiastic since the beginning and popped up now and then to remind me that PlanetSide does, in fact, have a literary fanbase and that I should add to it.

As always, **read, enjoy, review, and share!**

**Disclaimer: PlanetSide2 belongs to SOE and not moi. But I'll gladly play it for hours.  
Cover photo belongs to MouseDenton over on DeviantART.  
**

* * *

She could feel the change as they passed through the forcefields. Even through the thick, armored chassis of their sunderer, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck prickled. The Indar warpgate. One of four. The only places on this hostile planet that she could call home. She'd seen them in passing before when she was younger, off in the distance, but knowing she was going to be a part of what went on inside...

"It'd take a helluva lotta firepower to bring these bastards down," her trainer had told them. "The only color these fields see is red, so unless some clown from the NC or the VS ends up with your uniform, they ain't gettin' in without a fight. Same goes for their gates, so don't get any plans to go stormin' the castle." Her training squad had laughed, but Kacia had listened with the ears of a civilian rookie, not one born into a military family and following the footsteps of their parents. She couldn't help but take it all too seriously.

Feeling the sunderer trundling to a halt re-tied the knots in her stomach. This wasn't training anymore. This was war. Tomorrow, she would be fighting—killing—real people. People who wouldn't stand still and give her a chance to shoot. No, this was survival, not guided practice with holograms.

"Alright! Everyone out! Group up outside and wait for your instructions. You'll be joining a squad with at least one soldier of every other class, and one superior officer. This is your squad leader. You listen to them and you do what they tell you, you hear me?"

"Sir, yes sir!" was the unanimous shout.

"Good, now move!"

They all exited the sunderer amidst a flurry of noise. Kacia emerged into the sunlight, squinting. High above them, the landing pads of the warpgate buzzed with the constant traffic of aircraft arriving and departing. Higher still was the arch of the electric dome that kept them all from being completely wiped out of the war altogether. It was a disturbingly fragile barrier.

"Roane, you're in squad 227, with Sergeant Major Atkins." Her trainer motioned to a small group gathered on the lower deck of the gate structure, about a dozen meters away. "Good luck."

She nodded her thanks and gave a quick salute before starting toward the squad in mention. Her steps were loud against the metal deck, and she had to keep from faltering as six pairs of eyes turned on her.

"Kacia Roane..."

She immediately stopped walking and saluted the tall redhead addressing her, standing there uncomfortably for a moment as his clear blue eyes traveled down the length of her body.

After a minute, he laughed and shook his head. "Relax. Save the protocol for the people who care about it." He turned to his team. "Jess and gentlemen, meet Kacia Roane. She's your sister in arms now, and I expect you to show her as much respect as you show each other, got it? We were _all_ rookies once."

There was a smattering of "Yessir's" from the other squad members.

"Roane, this is your new squad." Atkins motioned to the other soldiers one by one. "Adam, our infiltrator. Goes by Striker."

The spy gave a nod of acknowledgment, smirking slightly.

"TK, the man behind the MAX."

The burly, dark-skinned man gave her a firm handshake and a warm smile.

"Jessica, affectionately known as Jess the Jet, our light assault."

The blond grinned. "Welcome aboard, sister. It's a crazy little family, but we'll look out for ya."

Atkins continued, pointing out the other men as they were mentioned. "Griffin is our engineer, Duke's our heavy assault, and I'm the medic. Or, I guess I _was_, seeing as I'm not the only one, now." He nodded to the thick cross patch on Kacia's vest.

"It'll be good to have another medic on the team," Striker piped up. "Duke can't aim that rocket launcher to save his life. Or ours."

There were a few snickers from the other squad members and Duke stepped toward the smaller man threateningly. "Ain't my fault you're always screwin' around with that invisibility shit right next to my targets."

Striker shrugged off the jab, even going so far as to offer his squadmate a cheerful smile. "You want me to list the times my "invisibility shit" has _saved_ your sorry ass?"

Duke looked about ready to spit out a comeback, but eventually just huffed and turned away from the spy, grumbling and shaking his head.

Striker smirked, dark eyes playful as he glanced at Jessica.

"Maybe next time, I'll actually aim _for_ you," the heavy-assault snarled, still walking away.

"Then I have nothing to worry about."

Duke whirled back around, but a loud chime effectively kept him from taking the snarky infiltrator to the ground.

"You all know what that means," Atkins announced, sounding relatively nonplussed by the obvious discord within his squad. "Jess, go ahead and give Roane a rundown of the place; show her where the bunks and the showers are, then come meet us in the mess hall. Usual place."

"Yes, sir." The blond gave an exaggerated salute before slinging her arm over Kacia's shoulders and leading her away from the group. "Nice to have another woman on the squad for once. Don't get me wrong, I have no problems with the guys, but every once in a while all that testosterone is enough to drive a girl crazy."

Kacia nodded silently, making Jess shoot her a sidelong glance. "You don't say much, do you?"

"It's easier to listen."

The other woman shrugged in agreement. "Sometimes. But if you've got a good idea, then say it. Don't leave it up to me to be the only voice of reason around here." She sighed. "I'm making it sound like we're a bad team. We're not. We can kick some serious ass when all the boys decide to get their shit together and stick to the plan instead of trying to go off and be the heroes of Auraxis."

"…does that happen a lot?"

"More than it probably should. Atkins is pretty lax when it comes to enforcing plans, but as long as we can make some headway and not end up dead in the process, I'm game for however he wants to run his squad." She paused at the top of a wide stairway along the southern wall of the deck. "In there is the teleporter room," she jerked her thumb in the general direction of a doorway over her shoulder. "That's where you'll come out whenever you warp back here after a mission, or when we send your DNA sequence through the rebirthing interface."

Kacia's expression must have betrayed her thoughts, because Jessica laughed quietly.

"Don't look so shocked. Everyone dies at least once out there. There's too many opportunities not to."

"Does it hurt?"

"Depends on how you go out. Headshot, bleedout, shrapnel, explosion, oblivious tank driver…" Jess nonchalantly kept listing off the various ways to die as she descended the stairs. "But generally, yeah, most of those hurt. Hard truth." She looked back at Kacia before continuing. "The waking up doesn't hurt, since the old body is _usually _out of commission anyway. You'll just be on bed rest for a few days before you can get back to fighting, is all."

They reached the bottom of the stairs and Jess stopped in front of a pair of semi-circular metal doors. They reminded Kacia of a bank vault.

"The personal quarters are all down here, behind these blast doors. Makes it safer for us if this place were to get attacked, which hasn't happened in the four years I've been part of this squad." She walked past the already-open blast doors and into a narrow hallway lined with smaller doorways all blocked by Terran-specific infantry shields. "All these are the squad rooms. Ours is the one with our number on it, obviously. We call it the dorm." She walked through a shield with the number '227' wavering gently on its surface.

Kacia peered in. The room was barely large enough for the four sets of bunk beds it currently hosted, as well as the line of good-sized lockers against one wall.

"You can pick any bunk, here, here, or here," Jess pointed out the available beds. "Atkins and Griff have those, Duke and TK are over there, and me and Adam share that one."

"You two are together?"

"Have been for three and a half years. We'd be married, if people were even still interested in that shit anymore, but considering the circumstances, sharing a bunk is good enough for both of us."

"Is Sergeant Atkins okay with it?"

She waved her hand dismissively. "He doesn't care. We all know the risks of dating in the middle of a war. As for professionalism, well...you've seen our squad. When we're around any of the head honchos, we stay an arm's length apart, address each other by rank, you know. All that nonsense."

Kacia wandered over to the pair of unoccupied bunks, setting her backpack on the lower one. "This'll be safe here, right?"

"Yeah. No one wants a homesick rookie's trinkets, anyway, no offense. But if you wanna put it in one of the lockers, go ahead."

Kacia thought for a moment, before ultimately leaving her pack where she put it down.

"Lemme show you where the washrooms are, then we'll go grab something to eat. Sound good?"

The younger woman nodded in the affirmative and followed Jess back out into the hall.

"If those blast doors are ever closed, just put your palm on the scanner right next to 'em and they'll open for you. It reads DNA as well as prints, so it's pretty much hack-proof."

"Would anyone ever try to capture this gate?"

The light assault shrugged. "Maybe. If they were feeling ballsy enough and already had the rest of the continent taken care of. Look, I know the war seems…distant when you're in school, like it's something going on "out there" and doesn't affect you. Well, "out here," it's real. The NC and the VS aren't gonna stop until they've got what they want, so that means we can't either. With the way things are going, there's only going to be one victor in this war, and you can bet your life that the TR isn't goin' down without a fight. So unless we want all our families killed and our lifestyle turned inside out, we have to give it back just as good as they dish it out. The planet's gonna be red one way or the other."

"That sounds rehearsed," Kacia quipped softly.

Jess looked over her shoulder silently for a second, then turned back around. "Maybe it is. But lemme tell you something—when the propaganda is the truth, you better damn well listen."

* * *

"So how old are you, kid?" Duke asked through a mouthful of potatoes.

"Nineteen," Kacia answered, picking at her own lunch. "Twenty in October, though."

"Mm."

For a moment, only the sounds of white noise from distant conversations and utensils scraping against plates occupied the silence.

The heavy assault soldier shifted and cleared his throat. "Sarge, we gonna go out and cap somethin' tomorrow?"

"What, you gettin' bored already?" Atkins drawled. "No one ever gets bored at the warpgate…"

Kacia offered a half-hearted smile as the squad laughed. The comment Jess had made about dying had unnerved her. Were they all so used to it by now that it was just simply another day-to-day occurrence? Or were they just so good that they never had to worry about it anymore? Either way, she wasn't thrilled about having to learn what it felt like to die.

"...reporting some Vanu activity nearby at the Ayani Labs—that'd be an easy first fight for the rookie. Get her used to everything."

"Easy if it weren't the Vanu," Striker argued. "They'll make us send her back as a burning, melted—"

TK sighed. "It don't matter who we fight, she's gonna end up dyin' a few times. You know that."

"Yeah, besides, the labs are hardly a challenge to cap. If she sticks close, she'll be fine."

"Or she and I can stay in the sunderer," Griffin suggested.

They all turned to look at her.

"Um..." she mentally kicked herself. "I have to learn to fight sooner or later, might as well start now, right?" She couldn't even trick her own brain into believing those words.

Duke, on the other hand, looked self-satisfied. "That's what I like to hear."

The rest of them didn't look convinced and exchanged glances. Finally, Atkins shrugged. "It's your call. You'd be more than safe in the sunderer, but if you want to try to help us out, be my guest."

"I'll..." _Decide when we get there? _"...I'll help fight."

Striker looked resigned and muttered something to Jess. Atkins just gave a small, knowing smile.

"Meet you all in the sundie," Duke announced, pushing back his chair loudly and leaving no room for complaint...or correction.

They all glanced at each other. Striker raised an eyebrow as the heavy assault walked off. "He...does know he said _tomorrow_, right?"

TK laughed. "He'll figure it out sooner or later."

"I say we take bets on how long."

"An hour," Jess offered quickly.

TK shook his head, laughing. "Nah, he ain't _that_ stupid...I say half."

Striker sighed and stood up. "Or we could just go get him. Be back in a second." And he jogged off after his squadmate.

Atkins chuckled and tipped back the rest of his drink. "So. Welcome to the club, kid."

"And before you ask," Jess interjected. "It _is_ like this every day."

Kacia didn't know how to react. She hoped (desperately) that when the time came, this haphazard group could pull itself together. If not...well...

Griffin lightly squeezed her shoulder as he walked past. "Feel free to change your mind if you don't feel like fighting tomorrow."

She could only offer a thin smile in response.

Jess seemed to sense her anxiety and pushed her chair back. "Whaddaya say you and I go unwind down at the shooting range? Show me what you can do and I'll teach you a few of the tricks I've picked up over the years."

She nodded, grateful for the chance to get away and clear her head. And improve her shooting. "Sure."

"Mind if I tag along?" Atkins asked. "I'd like to see her skills too."

They both looked at Kacia, who nodded her assent. She felt like saying no would be stupid.

* * *

"Here, try this bad boy." Atkins tossed a rifle at her. She caught it awkwardly. "Standard issue for medics. If you're good with that one, we can see about an upgrade."

The gun felt foreign in her hands, even though she'd held one throughout most of her training, however brief that training had been. But she forced herself to remember what she'd been taught and raised it up to her shoulder.

"Good...good…" Jess circled her, hands on hips, inspecting her stance, her grip on her gun, even little things that Kacia thought wouldn't have mattered, like how far she kept her elbows from her sides.

"You don't want to nail yourself in the ribs because of the kickback," the light assault explained. "During a battle, the last thing we need is soldiers crippling themselves because they didn't know how to hold a gun. These little guys don't have too much of a kickback, but they are semi-automatic, so you need to be able to keep 'em stable for the duration of the burst." Jess nodded in the direction of a row of targets a few hundred feet away. "Line up a shot and show us what you can do."

Kacia looked down the range. A headshot would be possible from this distance with a scope...and a stabilizer...and a rifle that wasn't semi-automatic. "How accurate is the hip fire on these?"

"Accurate enough," Atkins assured. "Just try to hit the target from here. All I wanna see is how you shoot."

She nodded and raised the gun, trying to line up her sights with the crosshair on the target. Then she squeezed the trigger. A rapid spray of bullets peppered the padded floor several dozen feet away.

Before anyone could speak, a familiar voice drifted out from near the wall next to Jess. "What ginger over here meant to say..." the phantom voice was soon accompanied by an uncloaking Striker, "...was that the hip fire is accurate at close range." The infiltrator was leaned against the wall. "But you'd need something better if you're trying to hit from that distance."

Jess settled back against the wall next to her lover as Kacia inspected the gun. "Did you ever get Duke back?"

He laughed. "Yeah. Of course, he shrugged it off like always. He was all—" the infiltrator lowered his voice exaggeratedly, "—"yeah, yeah, I know, I was just gonna—" and then came up with a really lame excuse for walking off." He shook his head, still chuckling.

Jess sighed and picked at one of her fingernails. "I wonder why we keep him around…"

There was a moment of slightly awkward silence until Striker spoke again. All the former traces of joking had vanished from his voice. "You know, rookie, if you don't want to fight tomorrow, you don't have to. And don't bother lying again. There's no one here you have to impress, okay?"

She glanced at he and Jess, then finally back at Atkins, who just shrugged. "He's right."

"In fact, if you decide you don't, you can hang out with me and do some scouting from a safe distance. Or you can chill in the sundie with Griff. Up to you. Personally—and professionally, I might add—" this was coupled with a sideways glance and a smirk at Jess, who rolled her eyes, "—I think you'd be safer with me. The sunderer is always a focus for the enemy, just because it's the mobile rebirth point, as well as the supply depot. If you stayed out of sight up high with me, it would be a lot less stressful. You'd be on the comm. channel, calling out enemy positions, tracking incoming troops, things like that. I'd just shoot."

Kacia was relieved. That sounded so much better than going out and running into the middle of a gunfight. "If you don't mind…"

"Not at all." The spy grinned. "It'll be nice to have an extra set of eyes up there. Oh, and a word of advice—keep one of those eyes on this one." He poked Jess' shoulder. "She likes to play around with the jetpack instead of actually fighting."

Jess made a face and moved to kick him in the ankle, but he disappeared and she missed, hitting the empty air with a muttered curse.

Kacia just smiled. This might not be so bad after all.


End file.
